Trish Rechichi
Inspiring you to dance to your own tune in lifeCommunity Engagements
My Newborn Stopped Breathing
Trish Rechichi
Angelo and I had been together for 20 years and married for 15 when I fell pregnant. We were delighted and enjoyed every moment of it. I felt really well and continued to work, socialise and be active. We kept our pregnancy quiet until the sixth month – and no-one had any idea that we were in fact going to become parents. While I loved my job as a marketing manager, I was really looking forward to becoming a mum.
Three weeks before my due date, early on a Sunday morning, my waters broke. After four hours of contractions I had an epidural and, seven hours after labour began, our daughter Bianca arrived. She weighed 2.7kg, scored 9/10 and 9/10 for her APGAR tests and was described in the medical reports as a vigorous baby girl, born after an uncomplicated labour.
Sudden Trouble
But just two hours later, when we were still in the labour suite, Bianca stopped breathing. There was no noise – she just went white. We pressed the emergency button, a midwife rushed in followed by all the other staff who were paged – swooped her up and took her to the nursery, where she was resuscitated with oxygen via a mask and chest compressions. During this time Angelo watched from the nursery, while I was left in the birthing suite on my own, wavering between feelings of despair, that the worst outcome would eventuate, and clinging onto my belief that we’d have the best result.
To read the full article, click here…
Mother & Baby magazine, Jan/Feb 2012, page 51
Grim childhood shapes a simple life of caring
Pam Casellas
When looking back at our childhood we tend to let nostalgia blunt the sharp edges. Not Trish Rechichi. She says she had a working childhood. “At the age of nine I was helping cook for a family of 10, handwashing clothes on a stone and working on a farm that had no electricity and no running water… I see myself running around on the gravel with no shoes, restless nights sharing a (single) mattress with my sister Dorina and Nonna.
“I remember the splinters in the backs of my legs from sitting on old wooden fruit boxes instead of chairs. Out the back an old vegetable-oil tin served as our loo… ”
Going to school meant a temporary escape from work on the farm, which resumed until nightfall. Food was what grew outside – and there was pasta, always pasta. So much pasta that she later avoided it for a decade.
What is remarkable about the life that Trish Rechichi recalls in her book Same Dance Different Tune is that it did not happen in the 1930s and 40s, in rural Italy. It was her life in a struggling migrant family in Bindoon in the 1970s.
This ebullient young woman pulls no punches about how grim it was. She was resentful that her contemporaries were dining out at Hungry Jacks, going bowling, eating Twisties and watching television. With her siblings, she was part of a work gang which spent holidays picking up rocks on their parents’ farm, harvesting fruit, chopping wood.
Her father emigrated from Italy at the age of 19 in 1950 and her mother in 1957. They married in 1962, having been introduced by a matchmaker. It’s a lovely story.
One day he was driving on Great Northern Highway and he saw this beautiful, dark-haired young woman. He stopped and asked if she’d like a lift, but naturally she refused. Later, the matchmaker took him to meet an Italian family in the Swan Valley, and lo and behold, there she was.
Both were, and still are, illiterate but with his brothers they started their new life on the small Bindoon farm where eight children and two miscarriages followed in the space of 10 years. Home was an old asbestos house with no electricity and no running water. Nonna lived there, too, and the brothers. There were no toys, no birthday or Christmas presents.
The kids spoke only Italian until they started school and looked on in surprised envy at their schoolmates’ comfortable fives.
Trish Rechichi’s mother virtually ran the farm and raised eight children while their father worked as a railway ganger. At one stage there were so many kids and so few chairs that they simply stood in a line and their mother moved along handing out food.
But, says Ms Rechichi, it is what one does with a childhood like that which matters. It was grim at the time but she looks back with pride at her parents’ courage, at their acceptance of their lot and the perspective on life she now has. It isn’t about money, it’s about community.
Initially, she was determined to leave her humble childhood behind, and did, reaching high into the corporate world and surrounding herself with what she didn’t have in childhood.
But now, at 40 and married, she’s chosen a simpler path, has scaled down her career and has turned her formidable determination into fostering community causes. Proceeds from the book will go to aged care and to identifying young talent. Same Dance Different Tune, by Trish Rechichi, $30, by order from www.trishrechichi.com.
The West Australian, 12/7/08, p15
Young Achievement Australia
Sunday, 27 June 2008
Established in Australia in 1977, Young Achievement Australia is a dynamic, innovative, non-government, not for profit charitable institution that is committed to developing the boundless potential of young Australians.
Our core objective is to prepare young people to meet the social and economic challenges of the next decade by providing challenging and inspiring educational programs that promote lifelong learning and foster qualities of leadership, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.
Business Skills Management Seminar
Business Skills Management Seminar A Great Success!
The Business Skills Management Seminar was held on Sunday, 15 June and was hosted by the Faculty of Business and Law, ECU. The day was a great success with over 50 students attending.
Managing Director, Bright Qi then gave a presentation on E-Commerce and the issues he faced when setting up his own business; WebWebWin.
Following Bright’s presentation, Trish Rechichi then spoke about the best ways to connect with retailers. In her role as Manager of Sales, Development and Retailer Relationships for Lotterywest, she was able to provide students with invaluable tips on building relationships with people students will come across throughout the course of the program.
More TV & radio!
Wake up! WA; Thursday, 26 June 2008
Curtin Radio; Friday 27 June 2008 with Liz Pye
Even more extraordinary women
Motivation and real inspiration are on the breakfast menu when we introduce you to four Perth women with their remarkable stories of overcoming struggle and finding success at the EveryWoman is Extraordinary Breakfast on Friday 27 June.
One of LunchBox’s perennial favourites, this year you’ll hear from Lotterywest relationship manager and newly published author, Trish Rechichi. Trish’s story is a touchingly simple. It includes her time growing up in poverty in rural Western Australia with her Italian migrant parents and seven siblings, her determined struggle to succeed in the corporate world and a personal ‘reawakening’ which prompted her and her husband to re-evaluate their life’s priorities. The themes in Trish’s book include the power of a dream and the potential within every person to achieve their life goal, as well as the need to discover the person we are deep down and the values that we will live our lives by.
The West Australian, 11/06/08, p6 (The Arts)
Appearance on 6PR
Steve Gordon “The way we were” Sunday 8 June, 9.15pm – 10.00pm
“Hi Trish, I thoroughly enjoyed your interview with Steve Gordon on 6 PR and would like to thank you for such an entertaining time… You certainly had a hard start to life but you’ve made it thro’ those times and in my mind come out a winner, good onya girl… Congratulations to your husband for picking a real fine lady to spend his life with… I also picked the right one so I’m a happy man too… I will be buying a copy of your book but it will be a little while before we can afford to, but we will…..
Best of luck for the future Trish and take care, your blood is well worth bottling…… Al
Never check the depth
of water with both feet
at the same time
Appearance on Curtin FM
Afternoon – 21/05/2008 – 01:37 PM
Liz Pye
Interviewees: Trish Rechichi, Sales Development and Retail Relations Manager, Lotterywest
Duration: 18:31
Pye says Trish Rechichi, Sales Development and Retail Relations Manager, Lotterywest is also the author of the book Same Dance, Different Tune. Rechichi says it is her life story, which started when she was born on a farm in Bindoon. Rechichi reflects upon her childhood and adulthood, including her struggle to find a job that filled her with passion. Rechichi mentions she worked part-time at TAFE and volunteered for a while, but finally realised she wanted to work and give back to the WA community. Rechichi says she started applying for jobs at not-for-profit organisations, and even though she was offered a very well paying job at Gerard Daniels, she decided to work for Lotterywest and now she could not be happier.
New rewards from change in direction
STEPHANIE PAINTER
Trish Rechichi has come a long way since her childhood when she spent nights gazing out of a hole in the asbestos wall of her family’s Bindoon house, dreaming of a better life.
The latest addition to her list of achievements is a nomination for an inaugural List Inspire award. The awards, which are backed by The West Australian, celebrate the achievements of WA businesswomen.
Drawing on the strong work ethic of her Italian parents, Mrs Rechichi became a high-powered State manager of a big company – with a BMW and flash jewellery to match.
But it was during a trip to Italy in 2000 that she had a chance to re-evaluate her life, quitting her job and turning her attention to helping the community. Now sales, development and retailer relationships manager at Lotterywest, Mrs Rechichi, 40, volunteers at Access 31 television and has helped raised more than $100,000 for Telethon. She has also written an inspiring story, Same Dance, Different Tune, about her childhood on her family’s small farm. “I had a privileged childhood,” she said. “I didn’t believe it at the time – I spent most of my childhood crying because I could see all of the things I didn’t have. Life is not about material or financial wealth, it’s about emotional wealth and that’s what I had.”
Nominations for the List Inspire awards close on Wednesday. Details: www.lunchboxlist.com.
The West Australian, 28/4/08, p14
Trish learnt steps the hard way
FRANCES SACCO
The lessons of Trish Rechichi’s barefoot childhood in Bindoon have been lovingly brought together in her first book, which is to be launched on May 23.
Same Dance Different Tune: the lessons of a barefoot childhood is the culmination of eight years work for Rechichi, who now lives in Dianella.
The book chronicles her young days living without electricity and running water when she and her seven siblings helped out on the vineyard after school and in the holidays.
“It was a very different childhood to that of my mates,” she said.
She went to Gingin District High School and then to Bullsbrook District School for her TEE – the hardest two years of her young life.
“I would get up at 5am to work on the farm then waited on the Great Northern Highway to catch the bus,” Rechichi said.
“It would take us about an hour to get to school at 9am, then at 3pm I’d come home and change straight into work clothes and go back out to the farm, then come in and cook meals for everybody.
“I wouldn’t start work on my TEE studies until 10pm.”
A fear of going back to the farm led Rechichi to push herself to a successful career in the corporate world, but it was not until she went to Italy that she realised she had actually lived a privileged life.
“I spent a lot of my childhood crying over nothing,” she said.
I actually had everything I needed – I had parents who loved me.
“My sister and I didn’t need to have Adidas shoes to win best and fairest awards at netball.”
This revelation led Rechichi to search for work somewhere she could give back to the community and she now works at Lotterywest at Osborne Park and volunteers at Access 31 on the show The Couch, interviewing young talented people.
The book is self-published and copies can be ordered at Rechichi’s website www.trishrechichi.com.
Part proceeds from the book will go to aged-care support and programs that support the profile of young talent.
The Advocate Community Newspapers, 30/4/08, p13
Bare of feet but not of love
The lessons of Trish Rechichi’s barefoot childhood in Bindoon have been lovingly brought together in her first book, which is to be launched on May 23.
Same Dance Different Tune: the lessons of a barefoot childhood is the culmination of eight years’ work for Rechichi, who now lives in Dianella and works in Osborne Park.
The book chronicles her young days without electricity and running water when she and her seven siblings helped out on the vineyard after school and in the holidays.
“It was a very different childhood to that of my mates,” she said.
She went to Gingin District High School and then on to Bullsbrook District School for her TEE – the hardest two years of her young life.
“I would get up at 5am to work on the farm then waited on the Great Northern Highway to catch the bus,” Rechichi said.
“It would take us about an hour to get to school at 9am, then at 3pm I’d come home and change straight into work clothes and go back out to the farm, then come in and cook meals for everybody.
“I wouldn’t start work on my TEE studies until 10pm.”
A fear of going back to the farm led Rechichi to push herself to a successful career in the corporate world, but it was not until she went to Italy that she realised she had actually lived a privileged life.
“I spent a lot of my childhood crying over nothing,” she said. “I actually had everything I needed I had parents who loved me.
“My sister and I didn’t need to have Adidas shoes to win best and fairest awards at netball.”
This revelation led Rechichi to search for work somewhere she could give back to the community and she now works at Lottery West and volunteers at Access 31 on the show The Couch interviewing talented young people.
The book is self-published and can be ordered at Rechichi’s website trishrechichi.com
Part proceeds will go to aged care support and programs that support young talent.
Stirling Times, 6/5/08, p24
Eastern Reporter, 6/5/08, p43
My Engagements
- My Newborn Stopped Breathing
- Grim childhood shapes a simple life of caring
- Young Achievement Australia
- Business Skills Management Seminar
- More TV & radio!
- Even more extraordinary women
- Appearance on 6PR
- Appearance on Curtin FM
- New rewards from change in direction
- Trish learnt steps the hard way
- Bare of feet but not of love